Why is the 'Species' column of the Iris dataset in scikit-learn not of string data type?

I am working with the Iris dataset in scikit-learn and I noticed that the ‘Species’ column is of an object data type rather than a string. Why is this the case? Is there a difference between object and string data types in scikit-learn? Should I convert the ‘Species’ column to a string data type before working with the dataset?

Any insights or suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you!